The Ardonagh Group, the UK’s leading, diversified independent insurance broker, today announces its financial highlights for the twelve months to 31 December 2019. Income rose by 26.6% to £667.5m whilst operational integration and a focus on growth initiatives delivered a 66.4% increase in Adjusted EBITDA to £183.4m.
Chairman John Tiner commented: “Ardonagh’s resolute commitment to achieving operational efficiency, growing new areas of the business and effectively integrating accretive acquisitions shines through in the substantial profitable growth reported in 2019.
Our Advisory platform completed the roll out of Acturis in 2019. All in scope branches have now completed a full annual renewal cycle on a single system. We launched a new corporate practice with has won the largest UK clients to date. In Health, we integrated Chase Templeton and The Health Insurance Group with Towergate Health and Protection into what is now a six-site business with 25,000 SME clients, making it the largest
broker in the field.
We also made significant progress in our placement strategy to reduce the number of carriers and deliver better outcomes for clients. In Retail we finished the year with the successful integration of Swinton ahead of plan with significant cost reductions achieved during the year. The business has been transformed by a move onto Atlanta’s digital platform, a simplified suite of products and the addition of new panel members. Paymentshield achieved a number one market share of new business with every major IFA network whilst Schemes & Programmes withdrew from unprofitable business to focus on higher-margin niche markets.
Specialty continued to recruit a number of leaders in niche and specialist areas whilst focusing on modernising its operating model, reducing costs, standardising processes, digitising its front-end portfolio offerings.
“As the investment in transformational spend drew to a close as planned, underlying profitability has risen sharply with reported EBITDA up by 288% to £115.3 million and adjusted EBITDA rising by 66% to £183.4 million. The Group finished the year with a liquidity position of £181.7m.
“Our highly diversified product portfolio, scale, efficiency and flexible operating platforms limits our reliance on any single part of the UK economy, leaving us in a in a strong position from which to weather the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Insurance broking is an essential sector and the need for trusted risk advice is more important than ever. In these uncertain times, we remain very confident in the strength and resilience of our business.”
Recently Ardonagh announced the purchase of leading motorcycle insurance brand, Bennetts, which will most likely share some costs in terms of marketing, admin and claims management with Carole Nash. The deal should allow Ardonagh to extract more value from the two-wheeler market without raising premiums by a significant margin.
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